Frank Zappa: Classic or Dud?

Looking forward to this. It was supposed to premiere at SxSW this year -- I wonder if Winter has done any late tweezing to it in the last six months.

I mean, he was pro-decriminalization, anti-censorship, anti-nuke, anti-military interventionism, anti-apartheid, pro-civil rights. Was v wrong about abolishing income tax, though.xp

So there have been many archival releases in the last 20 years that I've barely delved into. Any thoughts on which are the best ones?

Wazoo (a live album by one of his jazziest bands) was good. There's some worthwhile stuff on the big Hot Rats box, too.

Road Tapes Venue #2, Greasy Love Songs, Wazoo, Roxy Performances

Whatever your favorite era/band, there will be some road tapes; Wazoo, the Hot Rats Sessions, the Roxy Performances top my list.

Some of those archival releases also feature the original LP mixes of certain records that Zappa remixed for their original CD issues, such as Freak Out, Ruben & the Jets and Uncle Meat.

Who else but a genius of Frank’s Zappitude would concoct a modern day cowboy song about a dental floss ranch?

I just saw that the new FZ documentary will be available as one of WFMU's on-demand films starting the 27th.

Zappa's nephew, Stanley, is a jazz saxophonist. I reviewed one of his albums for Stereogum, and he follows me on Twitter.

The Alex Winter doc is really good filmmaking, y'all. It's not a complete hagiography -- Zappa's singleminded focus coming through as callous assholism is remarked on several times. Gail's unhappiness with FZ groupie indulgence is made plain, though not by Gail. Winter highlights the pathos of "Valley Girl"'s origin. He leaves out FZ's wide ranging xenophobia except for a throwaway comment by Kenneally. But he (Winter) gets Conceptual Continuity as Zappa presented it and assembles the film in the same way, with images and music cues from all eras peppered throughout, especially in the first and last 30 minutes. Really well edited, and it admirably doesn't rely too hard on talking head interviews, which makes them more effective when they are used. Ruth Underwood and Steve Vai are especially good.

Don't watch if you have any antipathy to FZ at all, but worth renting otherwise.

I dunno if I'm just dense, however, it is *fucking* me off that I can't seem to be able to rent this from the UK.

I'm watching this through Alamo Drafthouse tonight

is it possible to have *no* antipathy for Zappa?
looking forward to this

true, true, I have plenty

Curious to know whether this will be available to stream in Europe.

This was a fairly good documentary, the band member interviews and new footage were the strongest elements. My biggest complaint was that it focused too much on Frank Zappa the personality at the expense of the music.

This was a fairly good documentary, the band member interviews and new footage were the strongest elements. My biggest complaint was that it focused too much on Frank Zappa the personality at the expense of the music.

Is there a Zappa documentary you'd like to see that focuses on some other topic?

Zappa fans not renowned for their sense of humour.

Don't get me wrong, it was incredibly hilarious and insightful. Thank you for your service. But yeah, I'd definitely say that a key to enjoying this film is having a desire to see a Zappa doc in the first place.

Like talking to a brick wall.

Why are you even wasting your time?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

moodles' joke was funnier than tom's tbh

i mean tom's is probably the one i would make

but i suck

Mine's wasn't even a joke, I actually misread the original post and initially thought that's what it said! Which I thought was funny.

Oh hey

as a former smoker, the shot of an ailing Zappa, ravaged by the cancer that he would have avoided if he did not bizarrely carry on for decades as if cigarettes were not deleterious, or at least not as deleterious as every other drug that he excoriated in public for decades, feebly attempt to handle a lit cig as an attendant administered medication, was truly pathetic…I'l have more to say later about the doc…as per another active thread, Zappa and Albini are very very frustrating…

I'm about halfway through the doc, and, well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's kind of exactly like the movie version of Zappa (the man). He's such an obnoxious asshole, and not even lovingly so. An important asshole, even world-changing, but an asshole nonetheless, which makes it kind of an exhausting experience. I do like the interviews with the musicians so far, and Winter's editing reflects the subject well, but man ... when he's talking about giving his wife the clap after going through groupies across Europe, not even in a free love sort of way but just out of pure my-way-or-the-highway selfishness ...

He's such an obnoxious asshole, and not even lovingly so.
Exactly! Which is why I am not a fan but I am a fan of the guy this song was written about
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbdsR5cDJlk

as a former smoker, the shot of an ailing Zappa, ravaged by the cancer that he would have avoided if he did not bizarrely carry on for decades as if cigarettes were not deleterious, or at least not as deleterious as every other drug that he excoriated in public for decades, feebly attempt to handle a lit cig as an attendant administered medication, was truly pathetic…I'l have more to say later about the doc…as per another active thread, Zappa and Albini are very very frustrating…

― veronica moser, Monday, November 30, 2020 6:55 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Didn't he die of prostate cancer?

no i think steve albini is still alive

🥁

Made it a bit more in the doc and liked the second half a lot more. In fact, had a bit of a ... revelation is too strong a word. But during the interview with David Harrington from the Kronos Quartet I thought to myself, huh, I love so much from John Zorn, why is it that I like so little Zappa? Is it ultimately just Zappa's singing/lyrics that drive me nuts? If he was *exclusively* instrumental, would I dig him? And my honest realization was ... maybe? I dunno.

I wish F had combined forces with don and Walter for an lp

Don and Walter had jazz chops that F lacked.

You've heard Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo?

None of the three are really great technical musicians. Zappa would get more points as a guitarist if he soloed over more than one or two chord backing. Of course, they appreciated and worked with superlative musicians.

There's an interview where Becker talks about opening for Zappa. "He had a sousaphone player, the drummer was reading charts... and all the kids in the audience wanted to do was boogie!"

Taking sides: the 72-74 Steely Dan band versus the 65-69 Mothers of Invention?

I'm sure at some point. I like a lot of the players on his albums, who have chops galore of every bent. I'm mostly echoing the opinion of my guitar teacher who finds Zappa the guitarist really boring and actually just the other day explained it to me (the best he could). I know I'll muddle this (because I have no chops) but Charlie Parker (and others) apparently built several songs around Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," and the song's fast chord changes have subsequently served as the basis for a ton of jazz. The way it was related to me was that it kind of is to jazz what the pentatonic scale is to rock. I think my teacher's biggest peeve with Zappa (the guitarist) is that his noodling is pretty basic pentatonic, and he theorized that one impetus for Zappa's cynicism and disdain could be his own frustration at being unable to hold his own as a more sophisticated player.

Not that Zappa needed to be more sophisticated - certainly when it comes to polyrhythms his music is nuts, which Vai in the doc points out - but it's just another one of his contradictions. He clearly wants success, but refuses to conform to anyone's idea of success. But then when he complains about lack of success or sales or whatever, it's always someone else's fault for failing to understand *him,* for them being the unsophisticated ones. Very "I refuse to belong to any club that would have me as a member." When he's on Letterman (in the doc) deriding the London Symphony Orchestra for maybe getting to 75% of what he wanted from them? Yeah, OK, Frank. There's a 1966 Don Paulsen interview my teacher pointed out to me where Zappa comes off downright Morrissey-esque in his confrontational contrarianism:

Hopefully tho, y'know it'll make them go more for your kinda music.

Zappa: Y'know another thing that's disgusting is the R&B stations, especially the ones in LA, man. Y'know they're so saturated with plastic Motown, y'know ahh, falsetto, rocking, big band bullshit man.
It makes ya cry. It doesn't even sound colored anymore.

yeh

Zappa: They don't play ANY country-blues, y'know, you'll hear, they'll play ONE John Lee Hooker record every six weeks y'know. 'Ah, here he is, yah! The blues favorite yessir, now to get that fucker offa there and stick the Impressions back on or somethin'.

Yeah, shit on Motown and the Impressions, Frank. The squares just don't get it.

I did leave the doc more impressed by Zappa the composer, not by the music itself, per se, but by his vision. He's got a really clear-eyed specific idea of what he wants to hear, and crazy/wacky/discordant/whatever it may actually sound like, it's definitely intentional and by design.

xpost

I've tried with "Waka/Jawaka" and "The Grand Wazoo" and never got anywhere, to be honest.

Charlie Parker (and others) apparently built several songs around Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," and the song's fast chord changes have subsequently served as the basis for a ton of jazz. The way it was related to me was that it kind of is to jazz what the pentatonic scale is to rock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_changes

Comparing a form and harmonic progression to the pentatonic scale is a weird one, though. A better comparison would be the 12-bar blues form (also a standard jazz form).

I think he gave the example as something just about any jazz player can (apparently) do that Zappa likely could not.

His chorale harmonizations were also lacking imo.

I think he gave the example as something just about any jazz player can (apparently) do that Zappa likely could not.

https://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Zappa,_79/8

Musician: "America Drinks And Goes Home" (Absolutely Free) has a real jazz standard flavor. Did you write it to pay tribute to that style of music, or was it a parody of that genre?
Zappa: It's a very scientific parody of that genre. It's so subtle that you almost wouldn't see it as a parody. It's not a bad tune. The whole essence of that kind of music is that moron II-V-I syndrome, where everything modulates around the earth going II-V-I. It's an exercise in II-V-I stupidity.
Musician: You don't write many things in II-V-I.
Zappa: I've always been against dominant chords resolving to tonic chords. That, to me, is just the bottom line of white person music.

And there’s more where that came from.

Zappa: I've always been against dominant chords resolving to tonic chords. That, to me, is just the bottom line of white person music.

Haha, I didn't know he said this. He may have had a point if "white person music" = the Western/European tradition as opposed to art or folk musics from African, Asian, aboriginal North American, etc cultures. It's obv insane if he meant it in the context of white American music vs African-American music, though.